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Sunday, November 25, 2007

There's No Such Thing As An AtheistThere most certainly is something they worship

I've been giving some thought to the notion of atheism, and as I was cruising through the various sites on the 'net, I stumbled across St. Thomas Aquinas' Five Proofs of the Existence of God. Using science, reason and philosophy, St. Thomas proves the existence of God;

First Way: The Argument From MotionSt. Thomas Aquinas, studying the works of the Greek philosopher Aristotle, concluded from common observation that an object that is in motion (e.g. the planets, a rolling stone) is put in motion by some other object or force. From this, St. Thomas believes that ultimately there must have been an UNMOVED MOVER (GOD) who first put things in motion. Follow the argument this way:

1) Nothing can move itself.2) If every object in motion had a mover, then the first object in motion needed a mover.3) This first mover is the Unmoved Mover, called God.

Second Way: Causation Of ExistenceThis Way deals with the issue of existence. St. Thomas concluded that common sense observation tells us that no object creates itself. In other words, some previous object had to create it. St. Thomas believed that ultimately there must have been an UNCAUSED FIRST CAUSE (GOD) who began the chain of existence for all things. Follow the argument this way:

1) There exists things that are caused (created) by other things.2) Nothing can be the cause of itself (nothing can create itself.)3) There can not be an endless string of objects causing other objects to exist.4) Therefore, there must be an uncaused first cause called God.

Third Way: Contingent and Necessary ObjectsThis Way defines two types of objects in the universe: contingent beings and necessary beings. A contingent being is an object that can not exist without a necessary being causing its existence. St. Thomas believed that the existence of contingent beings would ultimately necessitate a being which must exist for all of the contingent beings to exist. This being, called a necessary being, is what we call God. Follow the argument this way:

1) Contingent beings are caused.2) Not every being can be contingent.3) There must exist a being which is necessary to cause contingent beings.4) This necessary being is God.

Fourth Way: The Argument From Degrees And PerfectionSt. Thomas formulated this Way from a very interesting observation about the qualities of things. For example one may say that of two marble sculptures one is more beautiful than the other. So for these two objects, one has a greater degree of beauty than the next. This is referred to as degrees or gradation of a quality. From this fact St. Thomas concluded that for any given quality (e.g. goodness, beauty, knowledge) there must be an perfect standard by which all such qualities are measured. These perfections are contained in God.

Fifth Way: The Argument From Intelligent DesignThe final Way that St. Thomas speaks of has to do with the observable universe and the order of nature. St. Thomas states that common sense tells us that the universe works in such a way, that one can conclude that is was designed by an intelligent designer, God. In other words, all physical laws and the order of nature and life were designed and ordered by God, the intelligent designer.

And an even more basic way to understand that there is the existence of God, or St Thomas called Him; The Necessary Being, The Uncaused First Cause, The Unmoved Mover, etc, is something called The Earthquake in the Garbage Dump Conundrum.

As atheists maintain, everything in creation simply fell into place. By their logic, if an earthquake hits a garbage dump, then it's conceivable for a 747 to eventually fall into place. As common sense dictates, a 747 (or anything else) will can never simply "fall into place". It takes the Intelligent Hand of a Creator (God) to be the Prime Mover of all things in the universe. By the way, has anyone else noticed that atheists never can explain where all that cosmic matter even came from that caused the so-called Big Bang? Something had to create all that matter... right?

But back to the fact that there is no such thing as an atheist.

I remember reading some years ago that the bottom line difference between a believer and an atheist is that the believer accepts as fact that all knowledge, truth and beauty comes from above; whereas the atheist accepts as fact that all knowledge, truth and beauty comes from within themselves.

There you have it. The atheists consider themselves to be The Necessary Being, The Uncaused First Cause, The Unmoved Mover. Quite simply, they consider themselves to be God. They worship themselves. A perverse sort of theological masturbation, if you will.

8 Comments:

Most Athiests of my aquaitance have this odd little quirk--they really don't want god to exist, because then there would, of necessity, be a truth that is absolute, with the implication that there are absolute moral imperitives. Moral imperitives that are not amenable to whatever they decide is moral.

I've seen the same thing among neo-pagans. If there are rights and wrongs that are beyond the desire of people, that means they can't do more or less as they please. Atheists just decide there is no god, neo-Pagans pick "gods" who like what they like.

It so often seems that it boils down to mistakeing freedom for license.

Agree with IR - the difference is selfless service as opposed to selve-serving. Both are serving a god, just one is God and the other is a fabrication. It's a difference in standards, do you hold yourself to the perfection of God or have you brought your god to your level and "attained perfection." We, in the image of God vice god in our own image.

Good reminder of what we all oughta know by heart--an yep, atheists hate the idea of God, an' partly because they wanna be free to rearrange things (even the human genders) to suit their idea of how the world should be created.

Off topic but worth it:http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/IK06Aa01.html

To IR I add it all comes down to them letting nothing get in their way to fornicate.

Speaking from personal experience, all atheists are just angry, often hurting people who didn't get enough love or hugs when they were kids.

It was these very points that I couldn't reconcile. That and how could a few Jews smuggle a 150-200 lb body under the noses from Roman guards after moving a 1000-2000 lb boulder up and away?And ghosts. And how all these mysterious things you see on TV like Ripley's.

Most atheists that I know believe that they are good. But it becomes very difficult to convince them that their internal knowledge of morality must come from a higher power. Sometimes debating atheist can make one feel as though they are going in circles.

I am a new Catholic so sometimes my knowledge is sadly lacking. My younger son, 15, read your article and now wants more info on Saint Thomas. Can you email me some info or maybe post some on your blog.